**Acknowledgement**

We would like to thank Tania Li Chen, James Wise, Christy Gianios Jr., Hong Xie, Amie Holmes, Carolyne LaCerte, Shouping Huang, Julieta Martino, Fariba Shaffiey, Kaitlynn M. Levine, Marijke Grau, W. Douglas Thompson, Christopher Perkins, AbouEl-Makarim Aboueissa, Tongzhang Zheng, Scott Kraus, Yawei Zhang, Tracy Romano, Todd O'Hara, Cairong Zhu, Lucille Benedict, Gregory Buzard, Iain Kerr, Bob Wallace, Jeffrey Kunz, John Atkinson, Roger Payne and all of the Odyssey boat crew for technical assistance and professional advice.

The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), the National Institutes of Health, the Army Research Office, the Department of Defense, the Environmental Protection Agency, the United States Department of Commerce or the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). It has not been formally reviewed by EPA or any other federal agency. The EPA and other federal agencies do not endorse any products or commercial services mentioned in this chapter. Work was conducted under NMFS permit #1008-1637-03 (J. Wise Sr., PI) and permit #751-1614 (Iain Kerr, PI). This work was supported by EPA GRO Fellowship Assistance Agreement No. MA-91739301-0 (C. Wise, PI), NIEHS grants ES016893 and ES10838 (J. Wise Sr., PI), NOAA grant #NA03NMF4720478 (J. Wise Sr., PI), ARO grant # W911NF-09-1-0296 (J. Wise Sr., PI), the Maine Center for Toxicology and Environmental Health, Ocean Alliance, the Campbell Foundation, and the many individual and anonymous Ocean Alliance donors.

**Chapter 6** 

© 2012 Mouton and Botha, licensee InTech. This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

© 2012 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution,

**Cutaneous Lesions in Cetaceans:** 

Marnel Mouton and Alfred Botha

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/54432

**1. Introduction** 

including cetaceans.

Additional information is available at the end of the chapter

**An Indicator of Ecosystem Status?** 

For countless generations, civilization had a relative insignificant impact on the marine environment, particularly on marine mammal species. However, with the dawning of the industrial revolution, a dramatic increase in the utilization of marine species (including whales) as a food source and other industrial purposes resulted in a radical reduction in the numbers of some species during the subsequent years, leading to a notable decrease in marine biodiversity during the 20th century. Fortunately, this exploitation was accompanied by increased awareness and campaigns by environmental and ethical lobby groups, resulting in more controlled and managed whaling activities, which in turn lead to markedly improved whale numbers [1]. However, the tide shifted once again with the dawning of the new millennium, characterized by ever growing industrial development and rapid human population growth. As a result, natural resources came under increased pressure and in particular, development and growth led to the creation of massive amounts of waste and pollutants. Consequently, high levels of marine pollution, especially near urban regions, became a serious threat to the health and well-being of marine mammals,

The first reports of skin disease in cetaceans date back to the 1950's [2]. However, over the last 60 years the frequency of these reports steadily increased. The question, therefore, arose as to whether scientists are just more aware of this phenomenon and consequently report more cases, or whether the occurrence of these lesions is indeed on the increase. Many natural factors such as ecto-parasites, water temperature and salinity are role players in these diseases. However, anthropogenic impact can no longer be ignored, since these influences can even affect the natural factors by escalating their effect. This brings one to another imperative question; whether these factors are linked, or whether they are merely the result of a coincidence. The aim of this review is therefore, to take a closer look at the

and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

## **5. References**

